The invention is directed to an eject mechanism having a lever arm mounted on a fulcrum and actuated by a push rod or ram to remove a plug-in assembly from a slot-like opening in a housing to the features
A structure wherein individual components can be connected via externally accessible installation locations and plug in contacts provided thereat is prevailing to an every-increasing extent in electronic devices, particularly in the field of computer technology. The installation and removal should thereby be possible in a simple way and optimally without a tool. Whereas the insertion can still be implemented in a relatively simple way, the removal often presents problems because the inserted components are either entirely immerse into the housing or at most slightly project therefrom, so that they cannot be pulled out manually or are very difficult to pull out manually. For this reason, an eject mechanism is provided in a plurality of devices, particularly in portable computers such as notebooks or the like, and the removal of a plug in assembly is capable of being facilitated with the assistance of mechanism by actuating a press button. Examples of this include PCMCIA installation locations in Notebooks, CD-ROM, floppy disk drives, hard disks or the like. The following boundary conditions should thereby be adhered to in principle:
the pushbutton for the eject mechanism should, on the one hand, not project far from the housing in order to avoid a disturbing entanglement and potential breaking of the pushbutton. On the other hand, the pushbutton should not enter very deeply into the housing for reasons of ergonomy and what is usually very little available space. PA1 The plug in assembly should come out of the device as far as possible with the assistance of the eject mechanism, so that it can be easily removed by the user. PA1 For ergonomic reasons, the pressing power on the press button should be as low as possible. PA1 The outlay for the eject mechanism should be slight.
The aforementioned conditions are partly not met at all and partly only inadequately met given currently known eject mechanisms. The reason for this is that only simple lever arms and, thus, fixed translation relationships are employed for the mechanism, this resulting therein that either the press buttons are difficult to actuate or that the assemblies are not ejected far enough or that the press button projects correspondingly far from the housing due to the longer working stroke that has been selected.